"Mother," she sighed affectionately, throwing herself into her arms.
The two women remained for a long time in each other's embrace. Unhappiness restored their intimacy of former days, when one of them was only a little girl.
Without a word they understood each other. Daughterly modesty prevented Elizabeth, who remembered her bitterness at Uriage, from questioning her mother, and she asked herself how long must she have lived with this terrible secret. What strangers we are to one another! How little we can know of the deepest anguish of beings who are dearest to us, and how difficult it is to see and to understand! To perform a duty is easier than to know it, and no one directs or perfects in himself this delicate and complex art of knowledge. Mme. Molay-Norrois was the first to feel the necessity of an explanation.
"My dear, I am finding you again. I thought I had lost you." "Oh, Mother!"
"I did not understand why you were estranged from me. But I blamed myself."
"Blamed yourself?"
"Yes, when you came back to us from Paris ... after Albert's ... deception, I did not admit for a moment that your separation was not inevitable. I aroused you against him, instead of calming you. I still retained, at my age, so many illusions about happiness, about life! Now, I have no more, you understand. I had thought so little about those things. Forgive my mistake."
Elizabeth covered the poor weeping eyes with kisses. In a low voice she asked:
"Is it a long time ... since you found out?"
"The last day at Uriage. And you knew then?"